


Legacies

by andrastes_grace



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: Canon: Fullmetal Alchemist Manga, Canon: Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, Gen, Post-Promised Day, implied edwin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-08
Updated: 2016-09-08
Packaged: 2018-08-13 21:57:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 910
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7987645
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/andrastes_grace/pseuds/andrastes_grace
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ed and his daughter visit a cemetery in East City.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Legacies

It was raining in East City.   It wasn’t heavy, but the it made the sky the colour of steel, and the rain itself was like mist with a physical form.  The girl walked through it slowly, her face turned slightly towards the sky.  She was fifteen and the rain had never bothered her.  In the south – where she was from – the days were endless heat, and the only rain that would break this was nearly always a storm.  The east’s weather, ranging from the frequent rainstorms of East City to the heat as the landscape shifts to desert, was more changeable, and she loves that.

Her father was already waiting for her, leaning against the gate to the cemetery with an umbrella open.  His free hand was holding flowers.  Feeling guily, she checked her watch to see that she was nearly ten minutes late.

“Have fun studying?”  He wasn’t angry, even though she knows he hates waiting around in the rain.  She could always count on him to understand the pull of old books and the thrill of research.  She laughed, still feeling guilty, and rubbed the back of her neck in embarrassment – a habit she picked up from her father.

“Yeah, sorry.  I just got so caught up I forgot the time.”

“It’s raining.  My _own daughter_ abandons me in the rain.”

She stuck out her tongue at him for that, only to get the exact same response in return, and they both burst out laughing.

“This is a weird place to meet.”  She looked through the gate at the rows of graves.  In the rain and mist it was creepy.  Despite considering herself a scientist she can’t stop herself from thinking about ghosts and monsters, and hands reaching up from graves.  Her father’s good humour of the moment before quickly faded and he turned away, staring through the gate.

“How are your alchemy studies going?”  He sounded cautious.

“Great.  The library here is amazing – they’ve even got one of your books.”  Alchemy had been her passion since she was young, just as automil was the passion of brother, Thomas.  Her earliest memory was proudly showing her father a lump of wood she’d successfully transmuted into a differently shaped lump of wood.  He’d ruffled her hair and asked her if her uncle had shown her how to do that.  When she’d told him she’d learnt it from a book he’d hugged her tightly and told her he was proud of her.

(The memory was too old, and she’d been too young to see the way her father’s expression had shifted from surprise to horror the moment he’d pulled her into the hug.  She only remembered his smile, and the encouraging words.)

“So why are we here, anyway?” she asked.  He doesn’t respond for a second.

His voice is quiet when he replies, “There’s something you need to see.”

They go into the graveyard together and her father instinctively tries to take her hand.  She pulls away with an embarrassed ‘dad, no’, half expecting everyone she knows from school in Rush Valley to suddenly appear and mock her.

They reach a grave identical to the others and her father stops.  “This one.”  There’s flowers placed in front of it, and they look fresh.  Her father carefully places his own flowers on the grave.

The grave only has a name and two dates: Nina Tucker, 1910-1914.

“Win thinks you’re too young to hear about her, Nina.”  His voice was thick, like he was coming down with a cold and she wondered if rain was the only thing on his face.  “But you’re an alchemist.  You should know.  I don’t – I can’t have you make the same mistakes.”

And he tells her, in that quiet graveyard as the rain grows heavier, the story of a girl named Nina and her dog, Alexander, taking place in a time where her father and her uncle are only her age.  It wasn’t the way he’s told her stories in the past, there’s no silly voices and exaggerated details.  His voice is empty and his golden eyes – identical to hers - are fixed on Nina’s grave as he speaks.

When he’s finished she takes his hand and he flinches, lost in the past before he finds his way to the present again, and he gives her hand a squeeze in return.

“I understand.  Alchemy is… powerful.  But it’s just a tool – it doesn’t give us a right to treat people like – like they’re _things_.  That’s what you don’t want me to lose sight of, right?”  She paused.  She doesn’t want to ask, doesn’t want to hear the answer,  “Do – do you want me to stop stuyding alchemy?”  She can’t tear her eyes away from the dates on the gravestone of the girl she’s named after.

Nina was surprised to find herself being pulled into a hug, “Of course not.  I’m so proud of you.  I just… needed you to understand.  I’m glad you do.”  He let her go, and gives her an awkward pat on the shoulder.  Nina finds her gaze being drawn back to the gravestone again.

“Dad?” She still can’t look away,  “Thanks for telling me.”

It’s disturbing, and she thinks her mother is right – she’s too young to be hearing this (but she sees the dates and does the calcaluation quickly.  Her father was only her age when he _lived_ it) but she understands.

She wont let herself repeat the mistakes of the past.

**Author's Note:**

> This was a very tricky piece to write, but I think Ed would really want his daughter to know about alchemy's darker side.
> 
> For some reason I ended up writing this half in present tense and half in past tense so I'm really sorry if some of it sounds 'off'. I think I managed to change it all to one tense (but feel free to point out any bits I've missed. I never turn down feedback).
> 
> Fun fact: 'graveyard' and 'cemetery' are not entirely interchangeable. 'Graveyard' usually means a burial ground that is joined to a church.


End file.
